


Star Pact

by OracleofDoom



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Spelljammer
Genre: D&D Backstory, F/M, FCFics, Mind Flayers, Tentacles, spelljamming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 08:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20328109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleofDoom/pseuds/OracleofDoom
Summary: Bard meets mind flayer on a star cruise





	Star Pact

**Author's Note:**

> You should not read this if you play D&D with me.

No shit, there I was, sitting at a corner table with my mandolin, gazing out the round window at the sea of stars as I experimented with a new tune. I jotted down lyric ideas in between sips of rosemary honey mead. I was lost in my head, finding the right words, hearing the music in my mind, when a shadow crossed my table and someone plopped down in a chair right next to me.

“You look like you could use some company.”

I glanced up at my unwelcome visitor, wondering what on Oerth had given him the impression that he would be welcome here. “I was just working on a song,” I said, glancing back down at my mandolin, trying to call the tune back to my head.

“You’re a singer?” he asked. He smiled. It wasn’t that he was unattractive. He had short blond hair, a little bit of stubble, a dimple in his chin, and very straight teeth. His breath smelled like beer. He was just unwelcome. “Can I hear what you’ve come up with? I can help you work on it.”

“I…” I didn’t want help.

“I’m Myke.” 

“Cassandra.” I wanted him to go away. “I really need to work on my song.”

“Let me help! Can I buy you a drink?”

“I already have a drink.”

“I’ll get you another one.” There wasn’t even any hesitation from him. He wasn’t discouraged at all.

“Uh. No thank you.”

“Well let’s hear this song.” He scooted close to me so that I could feel him breathing on me, unpleasantly warm.

“Do you have experience writing music?” I asked, trying to pull away, but he only followed.

He grinned, shaking his head. “No, but I have listening experience.”

I was actually relieved when the shouting and alarms began.

* * *

As of yesterday I’d never even heard of a mind flayer. Today, the existence of such nightmare creatures was impossible to ignore. I stared into milky eyes with no pupils, unable to look away. How a creature with no pupils could even see was the least concerning thing about it..

Tentacles wrapped around my head, holding me close to the creature’s face, like a lover from a nightmare. You know, those nightmares absolutely no sane person can possibly ever have had, in which one’s lover’s head has been replaced by an octopus.

I’d seen them squeeze some of the other star cruise passengers’ heads until their skulls cracked open. They’d killed Myke the Unwelcome, and I’d felt a disturbing combination of terrified but relieved. The tentacles around my head didn’t feel alarmingly tight yet. I figured he hadn’t decided whether or not to kill me. The suspense might decide for him if he didn’t hurry up. Why was I thinking of this creature as a he?

I definitely didn’t want to die. I had too much left I wanted to do. Write more songs, become famous, get rich, find true love. I’d failed so spectacularly at the last goal so far. I wasn’t ready.

A tentacle poked at my nostril, insinuating its way inward, forcing me to open my mouth to breathe. “Please,” I tried to say, although it was surprisingly difficult to do with my nose completely plugged up. I was ready to beg, to bargain, to do anything it wanted, if it could possibly want anything from me other than a meal.

FRAIL. WORTHLESS SLAVE WILL DIE WITHIN DAYS.

The voice in my head was so loud, I would have flinched, covered my ears, even though it hadn’t spoken out loud. If I wasn’t held immobile in its grasp. The voice sounded like my own voice, because it was my own thoughts, shouting at impossible volume.

It hadn’t killed me yet. It held me tightly, but that was all, despite its tentacles prodding uncomfortably at my nose and ears. I gagged as its tentacle explored further up my nose. I could taste it in the back of my throat, a taste like rotten meat. I swallowed back bile, coughing at the momentary inability to breath. If I vomited I would probably choke.

It hurt. Not my skull, but in my head behind my nose and my eyes. 

ADVENTURER _ ?  _ The voice exploded in my head, making me reel in its grasp. 

I couldn’t nod because I couldn’t move my head. I was, indeed, an adventurer. I didn’t enjoy it. It turned out I prefered warm nights of song and caresses to cold nights sleeping on the ground, fighting for my life. It turned out it was carousing that I craved more than adventure. But still, I was capable. Did this make it more or less likely that the mind flayer would crush my skull and lick my brains out like I used to lick out bowls of cake batter?

_ Nimble fingers closed over my own, gently taking the mandolin from me and setting it aside. Shade, my adorable elven thief, kissed me insistently while unlacing my bodice. The campfire crackled, the stars shone above, and he was perfect; everything was perfect. It was better than a fairy tale in which all the romance culminated in a magical kiss. _

CASSANDRA.

I was pulled back from the sweet, deceptive memory, to my embrace of tentacles and the pain behind my eyes and the taste of rancid meat in the back of my throat. I belched. Bile came up. I swallowed, choking. My throat burned.

. . .  _ “Cassandra!” Shade was shouting while I scrambled, naked, for my sword, already knowing we were fucked; there were too many of these rotting creatures dragging him away from me, then choking me . . .  _

It was as though I was back there. My tears weren’t only because of the mind flayer, but the memory of Shade, my first love, being torn away from me. Why? Why had my mind brought me back there?

My neck hurt, badly. I realized the mind flayer was holding me up by my head, and my legs were giving way beneath me.

. . .  _ I woke up alone, bruised and bandaged. Who had bandaged me? Where was Shade? I looked around for signs of where they had gone, frantically tugging my clothes on before gathering up both of our belongings. As I picked up his pack I noticed something golden inside. A royal seal. _

_ I knew what the king looked like, and Shade definitely wasn’t him, but there was a resemblance, around the shape of his eyebrows and nose. I had never had a look at the king’s sheltered son, Prince Shadathar. Until recently, it seemed. _

Letting the memories overwhelm me was less painful than the present, even though it came with the bitter feeling that things would have been so much better if I’d slept with Shade the thief rather than Prince Shadathar.

_ The priest wore a symbol of a skull wreathed in rubies. I’d found a similar symbol on one of my bandages. He glowered at me, with grey eyes that were a little bit frightening. He might have been handsome if he ever smiled. “Why do you want to look for this prince of yours?” His voice was full of disdain. _

_ “I love him.” _

_ The priest sighed. “You’re going to be disappointed. But I’ll help you.” _

I missed Xanthas, my dour priest. If I died, I would never be able to come back for him. I’d never be able to tell him what an idiot I’d been, thinking I was in love with the first man to get me out of my clothes. How he’d sent me away on a star cruise ship under the pretense of rewarding me for rescuing him.

The mind flayer was drawing these memories to the forefront of my consciousness. Why? Why did it care about who I was?

I HAVE A USE FOR YOU.

The mixture of relief and fear upon hearing these nearly made me wet myself. But I didn’t, because I was a lady, dammit.

I WILL LET YOU GO.

“Why?” The question came out in a choked voice full of snot.

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR FREEDOM. SO LONG AS YOU SPREAD MY SEED.

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was hardly in a position to argue. I was drawn closer to its octopus face. Its tentacle withdrew from my nose, but my relief was only temporary as I was pulled against its mouth, and I felt something  _ else _ entering my nose. Something wet, and warm, and suffocating me once more, with my mouth smooshed against the mind flayer’s . . . chin? No idea.

I felt something warm, like fire, throughout my head. I was certain I was going to die regardless of its promise to free me. My brain was boiling, I was sure of it, and I couldn’t breathe. I tried in vain to struggle before it hurt so much that I blacked out.

* * *

Water lapped at my feet. I lay on warm sand, with a tiny crab poking at my arm. My entire body ached, especially my head. It felt like the worst hangover I’d ever had. 

“See! She’s alive!” The voice had been male. I tried to turn toward it, squinting to make out a muscular young man hovering over me, a scrawny teenage girl at his side. 

“Where in Oerth am I?” I asked.

The two people exchanged glances, and the girl winced. “You’ve been shipwrecked,” she said.

The relief I felt in that moment almost made me burst into tears. Whatever that mind flayer wanted me to do, it sounded as though they were all dead now. Unless . . . unless it had left me there.

Never mind it. I was away from them, and free. I certainly would not be doing what it said.

As if in answer, a sharp pain stabbed behind my eyes, and I felt a sickly, wet slither somewhere behind them.

  
  



End file.
